tidy togs on and out the house 7.30 this morning, headed for town, take Harper to nursery for half eight and bring Clara back out to school for nine ..
std Tuesday morning these days ...
back at the house by nine ....
change into me hi viz and head for Ross sewage treatment works to meet Russ ......
doing the 'round the mulberry bush' in the centre of Ross by 09.35 (desperate traffic system there) and Russ is on the dog an' bone ...
"
Where are you Gra? .. lorry's just arrived "
"
Morrison's roundabout .. traffic's terrible - with you shortly "
he knew it'd be well after half nine, 'fore I could get to him and he'd been 'blagging it', 'til I got there.
parked up .... 40 (mind numbing) minutes later and we'd done all the ****in' paperwork, listened to all the bull sh1t and could get on ....
three lifts on contract lift ...
first lump was some sort of screener in a sodding great crate on a very iffy looking pallet ...
"
can you de-crate it so's we can see what it's like to get hold of "...
no way were they getting up on the lorry bed
..
so reluctantly put some strops under the pallet and took a bite ....
at which point it all disintegrated (as I'd guessed it would) so again reluctantly took all the weight and got it down off the bed ...
"
This lift is on you, if it drops - I am NOT at all happy with this and want it on record - we will not be covering this "
much discussion amongst the assembled throng ...
20 min.s later ...
"
get it on the floor Gra .. we're not getting up there to de-crate it "
FFS - 's only on a lorry bed
so got it down with a lot of creaking, groaning, splintering and graunching of wood as it continued to fall apart ....
bear in mind the whole thing only weighed 1.4t ....
what a piece of crap pallet/crate ..
alright on a fork lift 'praps, but never intended to 'fly'
so after lifting off what was left of the crate, got this thing slung
and it went for a
proper ride into spot
and after yet more deliberation I landed it where they thought it ought to be going .....
and after much more discussion picked it up again and put it where they'd changed their minds as to where it
should be (??)
lifted a couple of cat walks in beside it - 90 min.s later - after they'd finished bar-ing the bloody screener about to yet another position
and then spent God knows how long fannying about lining one half up with t'other .. would've been a POP if they'd slotted the biggest one in first (like I'd wanted to - but no - WTF did I know?
)
spent 10 min.s relocating a few odd smaller components down by their twist lock for them (they left me to get on with that - which is why it only took ten minutes
) ..
and they then eveeeeeentually decided we'd finished..
Russ and I had it wrapped up and ready to roll in another ten - he'd another job to get to in Leominster ....
he cracks it down, drops his ballast off,
'upstairs' and as soon as he's round over the front and hooked, I'm lifting the jacks, parking the pads and pulling the rigger beams in from
'downstairs' ..
by the time he's climbed down it's ready to roll
..
's a well practiced procedure ..
doesn't take us long to '
sod off'
And this is what is wrong with this country ......
to the right of the pic ...
three 'indians' - none of whom had much of a clue, ranging to none at all ......
and to the left of the pic ......
all the bloody 'chiefs' - stood gawping ALL day
'indians' out numbered 3:1 ......
and there's a few missing there, to say nothing of the half dozen or so sat in the offices
and don't get me started on all the bloody barriers, gates and where you could or couldn't walk .....
country is ****ed
two hour job - max - took well over 5 hrs
reminds us not to leave anything unsaid or in 
